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Chicago. Nutter ranks Soviet economy experts in reply to Friedman, 1962

 

From the January 1962 exchange of letters between Milton Friedman and G. Warren Nutter transcribed below, we learn that the University of Chicago was interested in potentially hiring some academic expert on the Soviet economy. Friedman asked Nutter to rank three possible candidates of interest. Nutter did just that and threw in a fourth name.

Long before turning to the history of economics as my major research interest, I entered academic economics in the field of comparative economic systems. One of the candidates mentioned in the correspondence, Francis Seton, wrote a signed [!] positive referee report for my 1986 article in the Journal of Comparative Economics, “On Marxian value, exploitation, and the transformation problem: A geometric approach“, that I honestly regard as one of my pedagogical high-water marks. Another one of the 1962 candidates, Gregory Grossman, was one of the distinguished outside referees to whom I owe a debt of gratitude for helping me clear the tenure hurdle at the University of Houston. It is a real pleasure to be able to add his Berkeley memorial and picture to this post.

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Gregory Grossman (1921-2014)
IN MEMORIAM by Gerard Roland

Gregory Grossman, born in July 1921 in Kyiv, Ukraine, passed away on August 14, 2014. Grossman was one of the world’s most highly reputed scholars of the Soviet economic system. He was considered a towering figure in the study of the Soviet economy. His scholarly work shaped the thinking of generations of scholars in the US and throughout the world.

In early 1923 his family fled post-Russian Revolution chaos and famine and took a month-long journey on the Trans-Siberian Railway to Harbin, Manchuria. After completing high school in 1937 in Tientsin, China, he boarded a Japanese ocean liner en route to attend UC Berkeley where he completed his B.S. and M.A., respectively in 1941 and 1943. During World War II, Grossman served as artillery observer with the 731st Field Artillery Battalion during the Battle of the Bulge and completed his war duty in Czechoslovakia. He received a PhD in economics from Harvard University in 1953. He was a faculty member of the Department of Economics at Berkeley from 1953 until his retirement in 1992.

Grossman was the author of several books and many highly influential articles. He made key contributions to the understanding of the Soviet economic system. In a classic article, “Notes for a Theory of the Command Economy” (Soviet Studies, 1963), he coined the concept of the “command economy” to characterize the central planning system, where production and investment were guided by the commands of the communist party elite and where managers at all levels of the planning system strove to implement the commands embodied in the plan targets. In such a system, prices and money play no active role and serve only as accounting units. In such a system, autonomy of agents must be curbed to favor the implementation of plan commands. As his former student, Pennsylvania State University professor Barry Ickes, has noted: “His formulation of the command economy hypothesis provided the framework used by scholars of several generations.”

In an equally famous article “The ‘Second Economy of the USSR” (Problems of Communism, 1977), he also coined the complementary concept of the “second economy.” Because of the imbalances and shortages inherent in a necessarily imperfect planning system, decentralized forms of market exchange, though illegal, were necessary to correct the allocative mistakes of the command system. Grossman worked with professor Vladimir Treml of Duke University and others to conduct more than a decade of research on all aspects of this second economy, gathering massive amounts of evidence based on interviews with emigres from the Soviet Union. He had garnered detailed evidence on the extent of the second economy and on prices of goods and services in various locations of the USSR.

Grossman’s analysis of the Soviet economic system proved extraordinarily prescient. Over time, as the economic system became more complex, the second economy tended to expand and corrode the command system, which eventually collapsed while managers of state-owned enterprises appropriated the assets they controlled in a process of spontaneous privatization. This was the starting point of the transition to the market economy that was studied by the next generation of scholars.

Grossman was awarded in 1991 a lifetime achievement award from the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies. Citing Grossman’s works on the “command economy” and the “second economy,” the award also noted his earlier, path-breaking book, Soviet Statistics of Physical Output of Industrial Commodities (1960), saying that the book “provided the profession with basic rules for working with distorted Soviet economic statistics and avoiding the many pitfalls of that enterprise.”

A colleague at Berkeley, Benjamin Ward, said there was a period in the Cold War of maybe 20 years in which Grossman “was the most knowledgeable person in the world about the Soviet economy.”

Grossman was an appreciated teacher. For decades, he taught the main undergraduate course on the Soviet economic system. He also supervised throughout his career a great number of graduate students who later became themselves well-known scholars of Eastern European economies.

Grossman was a polymath who had a deep understanding of the political, ideological, social and cultural underpinnings of economic life in the Soviet Union. As a result, he was widely sought out by his peers for comments on their scholarship. He was also known to be a consummate gentleman. He remained calm and composed in all circumstances and was known for his great sense of humor and generosity.

Family members said that, while he traveled widely, he had a particular love for Berkeley and the Bay Area’s lifestyle, culture, beautiful vistas and good weather.

In 1952 he married Cynthia Green and they had two children, Joel Grossman of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and Amy Di Costanzo of Berkeley, California. In 1972, he married Joan Delaney, a UC Berkeley professor of Slavic Studies who stayed by his side until his death. He is survived by her; by his two children, six grandchildren and one great granddaughter.

Source: Senate of the University of California, Berkeley.

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Francis Seton (Guardian obituary)

Francis Seton
An economist of ideal prices
By Maurice Scott

He was born Franz Szedo in Vienna, in the wake of the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire after the first world war. He was an only child; his parents had been born in Hungary, and were then citizens of Austria and had converted from Judaism to Christianity. His father ran a paper processing business in central Vienna, and Francis was educated there until 1938, when the Nazis were moving to annex Austria.

His interests lay in music and foreign languages, the latter taking him on visits to France and Britain. His parents, concerned at the Nazi threat, thought he should complete his studies abroad, and Francis contacted Balliol College, Oxford, when visiting England in 1937.

In March 1938, Germany invaded Austria. His father managed to arrange for Francis to go at once to London. Soon after, his parents also left Austria and Francis lost touch with them, fearing that they could be dead. But this story has a happy ending. In 1946 he learned that they had survived in Hungary.

From 1938 Francis read politics, philosophy and economics at Balliol, but by summer 1940 paranoia was widespread and he was classified as an enemy alien, albeit in category C, for those considered to pose the least danger. He was shipped to Canada in dreadful conditions.

By 1941 he was given the choice of freedom in Canada or return to Britain. As he wanted to fight the Nazis, he volunteered for His Majesty’s forces. Being still classed an enemy alien, he was allowed to join only the dogsbody Pioneer Corps. He met other aliens, including Arthur Koestler, Robert Maxwell and, most notably, a Russian soldier, who fired his interest in the language and the country.

By 1942, Francis was able to transfer to the Somerset Light Infantry, on detachment to Bicester. There, in spare moments he studied for an Oxford degree in Russian language and literature, helped by a refugee from the Bolshevik revolution who was at St Hugh’s, and this led, in 1946, to first class honours. In 1942, having been rejected on medical grounds as a glider pilot, his flair for languages led to a transfer to the Intelligence Corps.

In 1948, back at Balliol, Francis finally graduated with a first in PPE and became a British subject, having changed his name earlier. He was awarded a state studentship, to study the Soviet economy, the subject of his doctoral thesis. In 1950, he was elected to a Nuffield College research fellowship, followed by an official fellowship in 1953. He moved on from his interest in the Soviet Union to other countries in the developing world, and travelled widely. Eventually he became senior fellow, and took the lead in the election of two of Nuffield’s wardens.

Francis was immensely talented. His English literary style was a delight. He was multilingual, poetic, musical, and could play the piano with brilliance. For all this, and above all for his humour and friendship, he will be remembered.

He is survived by his wife, three children and nine grandchildren.

Francis Seton (Franz Szedo), economist, born January 29 1920; died January 7 2002.

Source:  The Guardian, March 21, 2002.

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: Alexander Erlich

Alexander Erlich was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1912. In 1918, shortly after the outbreak of the Bolshevik Revolution, his family immigrated to Poland where his father, Henryk, became a leader of the Jewish Labor Fund. After the execution of his father in 1941, Erlich and his family fled to the United States. Influenced by his father’s work and the political atmosphere of his youth, Erlich began his study of economics at Friedrich-Wilhelm University in Berlin and the Free Polish University in Warsaw. He completed these studies after moving to the US, earning his PhD from the New School for Social Research in New York City in 1953. His doctoral dissertation, The Soviet Industrialization Controversy, was the basis for his best known work, The Soviet Industrial Debate, 1924-1928, published in 1960. His lifelong devotion to the study of Soviet economic conditions and policies found Erlich a home at Columbia University. Beginning as a visiting lecturer in 1955, he received a tenured position as professor in 1959. He retired in 1981 only to return as a part-time lecturer and professor at Columbia University and Barnard College in 1982. Erlich died of a heart attack in January 1985 at the age of 72.

Source: Columbia University Archival Collections. Alexander Erlich papers, 1953-1985.

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Obituary of Eugène Zaleski (1918-2001)

Slavic Review 61, no. 3 (Fall 2002), 681-682.

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Arcadius Kahan (1920-1982)

After his arrival in the United States he earned a Masters in 1954 and Ph.D. in 1958 in Economics from Rutgers University.

He joined the Economics faculty at the University of Chicago in 1955. As a member of the Economics Department at the University of Chicago, Kahan straddled a fine line between the principles which he brought from his socialist youth and the neoclassical school of economic thought associated with the Department. He won the confidence of Milton Friedman with his work on the economic effects of the persecution of Jews in 19th century Russia. Kahan concluded that this had a significant impact on Russia’s economic backwardness, particularly as compared with western Europe. He argued that this was an example of dysfunctional governmental interference in the economy, which drew on the methodology of the neoliberals in the Chicago school.

Source: Arcadius Kahan, Wikipedia.

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Carbon Copy of Letter
from Friedman to Nutter

January 16, 1962

Professor G. Warren Nutter
Department of Economics
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia

Dear Warren:

There is again some talk around here of getting a Russian expert and various names have come up in the discussion. Three names that seem to stand out are Seton, Grossman, and Alex Ehrlich [sic]. I wonder if I could impose on you to send me a brief and frank note on these three people in terms of their scientific capacities in general as well as their special competence in the Russian field.

As you may know, what is involved here is part of a broader program than one that the Department alone is involved in. I have no special responsibility for this and am just writing as a member of the Department.

I do not know what has happened with respect to Kahan. I know that the College here has proposed making him a permanent tenure offer. The Department while expressing concurrence in this has not been willing to make this a joint appointment. I know neither whether the appointment has been approved by central administration nor whether Kahan has accepted it. Needless to say, this is all highly confidential.

Trust things are looking up for the Center. Best regard and wishes.

Sincerely yours,

Milton Friedman

MF:mp

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Nutter’s Reply to Friedman

University of Virginia
James Wilson Department of Economics
University Station
Charlottesville, Virginia

January 24, 1962

Professor Milton Friedman
Department of Economics
University of Chicago
Chicago 37, Illinois

Dear Milton:

I am glad to give my opinion on Seton, Grossman, and Erlich if it can be of help in the current deliberations of your department. I can indicate at the start that I consider Grossman to be the best of the three alternatives for reasons that will emerge from my comments.

I know Seton from his work, from listening to papers he read in England, and from various personal contacts with him. Seton writes with a lucid and interesting style as so many scholars trained in England do, but as is so often also the case the content does not measure up to the form. Most of his work, both analytical and empirical, seems to me to be quite superficial. As far as I know, he has not yet done a single piece of really serious research on an important problem. His one effort in the field of measuring industrial production has, in my opinion, received far mor attention than it deserves, aside from being wrong and misleading. In brief, I believe Seton still has to prove himself an original scholar of depth.

This cannot be said of Alex Erlich, whose work I know firsthand from his participation in the early stages in the N.B.E.R. project. Erlich has done some very creditable research, resulting in one book (his doctoral dissertation) and joint authorship of several other research papers of varying length. His major weakness on the empirical side is that he is somewhat slow and lazy, requiring continuous prodding to get work done. It is for this reason that most of his work has been done under somebody’s supervision. He has considerable difficulty in expressing himself orally, speaking very slowly and haltingly, but this does not carry over at all into his written work, which is generally clear and precise. Finally, he is weak and poorly trained on the theoretical side.

Grossman is clearly the most able economist in this group, and in addition he expresses himself extremely well. If anything, like Seton, he writes too well, being tempted to substitute pen and paper for thorough research. The only solid piece of research that he has done so far is the book that he wrote for us in the N.B.E.R. project. At the same time, he must be recognized as an able technician, thoroughly versed in economic theory and capable of making important contributions in the field of Soviet studies. The only problem to date is that he has not fully lived up to promise.

I should say that all three men are highly knowledgeable as far as detailed workings of the Soviet system are concerned, Erlich and Grossman probably more so than Seton. They are all three very agreeable and cooperative persons and would fit in well with any group of first-rate economists.

There is one person, less well known that the three you are considering but in my opinion very able, whom you should consider for this position. He is Eugene Zaleski, a Pole by birth but now a French citizen. While not an outstanding theoretical economist, he is the soundest person I know among Soviet specialists in interpretations of the working of the Soviet system. He is currently working on a long-range project on the Soviet planning mechanism and the relation between plan and outcome, the first volume of his work being scheduled to appear shortly. Unfortunately, he has been caught up in the French research apparatus with all the inevitable handicaps on successful individual research. Given the right opportunity, I feel that Zaleski could develop into an outstanding scholar in the field of Soviet studies. Among other things, he has a very quick and receptive mind, and he is a pleasure to work with.

I hope these brief comments will be of some use to you. To repeat, I think Grossman would be the best bet of the three persons you mentioned.

As to the Center, things are definitely looking up. We have already received since the conference $25,000 in essentially unrestricted grants, and the Lilly Endowment was most cordial and receptive to my pleadings and probably will contribute something.

Cordially,
[signed] Warren
G. Warren Nutter

GWN:jas

 

Source: The Hoover Institution Archives. Papers of Milton Friedman, Box 31, Folder 16 “Nutter, G. Warren.”

Image Source:  Gregory Grossman, Authority on Soviet Economy, Gregory Grossman, Passes Away, UC Berkeley News. August 25, 2014.

Categories
Columbia Faculty Regulations Salaries

Columbia. Definition of Sub-professorial Ranks, 1966

 

Since universities and their departments are formal organizations with hierarchical structures, from time to time Economics in the Rear-view Mirror digs out and preserves information useful in understanding employment histories of individual academic economists. Today’s post is concerned with the pre- or sub-professorial appointment ranks and comes from a Columbia University document found in the economic department records at the Columbia University archives.

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Revised April 28, 1966

Office of the Secretary
208 Low Memorial Library

DEFINITION OF RANKS:

Lecturer A Lecturer is an officer of mature experience, holding the doctorate or having equivalent special preparation, who is appointed annually to give part- or full-time instruction, and who does not qualify for the title of Adjunct Professor (see 1965 Faculty Handbook, Pages 28-30).

A Lecturer’s salary is generally determined with reference to that of an Assistant Professor and for the academic year 1966-67 should be based on a minimum of $1,250 for a three- or four-point semester course. Prorated variations shall be made for courses of other point values only when there is a substantial difference in the number of teaching hours involved.
Associate An Associate is an officer of mature experience, not a candidate for a higher degree, who is appointed annually because of special competence in a given field to give part- or full-time service and who does not qualify for the title of Lecturer. An Associate may have full responsibility for a course or courses or he may conduct under the supervision of a regular member of the faculty, drill or recitation sections related to courses offered by that member of the faculty.

An Associate’s salary is generally determined with reference to that of an Instructor and for the academic year 1966-67, the salary of an Associate who has full responsibility for a course or courses should be based on a minimum of $1,000 for a three-point semester course. Prorated variations shall be made for course of different point values only when there is a substantial difference in the number of teaching hours involved. The salary of an Associate who, under the supervision of a regular member of the faculty, conducts drill or recitation sections related to courses offered by that member of the faculty, shall be computed for a normal week of 16 hours at the rate of $7.50 per hour.

Note: Associates and Lecturers are not entitled to fringe benefits, including tuition exemption, except by special arrangement recorded in the Office of the Director of Personnel and subject to the rules governing Presidential appointments.

Note: The title of Associate or Lecturer requires a Presidential Appointment.

Preceptor A Preceptor is a full-time candidate for the Ph.D. degree who has completed the course work and preferably the oral examinations for that degree and who is appointed annually, for not more than 3 years (or, in exceptional situations, 12 consecutive courses, not more than two of which shall be given in any one semester), to teach, under the supervision of a regular member of the faculty, one or more courses not to exceed six points a term. Appointment to this rank shall normally be limited to students of outstanding teaching potential. Candidates for the Ph.D. degree who have had suitable teaching experience are eligible for appointment to a Preceptorship before completing the residence requirement.

A Preceptor’s stipend is at the rate of $2,000 per semester. Appointments for less than the full assignment of two courses per semester carry a prorated stipend but do not reduce the tuition exemption benefits of 15 points per term or the equivalent if the appointee is a student in Graduate Faculties.
Teaching
Assistant (I)		 A Teaching Assistant (I) is a full-time candidate for a higher degree who is given an appointment for one or two terms to conduct a section or an elementary or intermediate course under the supervision of a regular member of the faculty. Normally a person in this category, if reappointed for further service, should qualify on the basis of teaching experience as a Preceptor. Although normally for use in the Language Departments, this rank may be used in special cases in other departments.

The compensation for Teaching Assistant I is at the rate of $900 per course per semester. Two-point conversation courses shall be paid at the rate of $600 a course. Tuition exemption is granted up to 15 points a term (or the equivalent if the appointee is a student in Graduate Faculties) for a teaching load of 2 courses and is prorated for a lesser assignment.
Teaching
Assistant (II)		 A Teaching Assistant (II) is a full-time candidate for a higher degree, preferably having completed one year’s residence for that degree, who is appointed for one or more terms, not to exceed four consecutive years, and who is not in charge of a course or courses but who conducts drill or recitation sections related to courses offered by a regular member of the faculty. Although normally for use in the Language Departments, this rank may be used in special cases in other departments.

The compensation for Teaching Assistant II is at the rate of $1,000 per semester for service of 8 or more class hours per week. Tuition exemption is granted up to 15 points per term (or the equivalent if the appointee is a student in Graduate Faculties), both stipend and exemption to be prorated for a lesser assignment.

Note: Assistants who work only in the Language Laboratory will be paid an appropriate hourly rate determined by the Director of the Laboratory.

Teaching
Assistant (S)		 A Teaching Assistant (S) is a full-time candidate for a higher degree in one of the sciences who is appointed annually, for not more than four consecutive years, to conduct recitation, discussion, laboratory or other sections related to courses offered by a regular member of the faculty. Normally for use in the Science Departments, this rank may be used in special cases in other departments.

The compensation for a Teaching Assistant (S) is at the discretion of the department but should range between $2,000 and $2,400 per year. It is prorated on the basis that a full assignment amounts to 15 hours of service per week. Appointments for less than the full assignment do not reduce the tuition exemption benefits of 15 points per term or the equivalent if the appointee is a student in Graduate Faculties.
Graduate
Research
Assistant		 A Graduate Research Assistant is a student who is engaged in research while registered in the University as a candidate for a higher degree. The research must be under the supervision and guidance of a member of the academic staff and must be of a kind which will satisfy academic requirements in connection with the particular degree for which the student is a candidate. In addition, equivalent research must be required of all candidates for the same degree as a condition to receiving the degree.

The compensation for a Graduate Research Assistant is generally at the rate of $250 per month for 20 hours of service a week. Tuition exemption is granted up to 15 points per term or the equivalent if the appointee is a student in Graduate Faculties.

Caution: Consult the memorandum entitled Secretary’s Appointment for Graduate Research Assistants (revised January 17, 1966) from the Office of the Secretary.

Departmental
Research
Assistant
(I or II)		 A Departmental Research Assistant (I or II) is a full-time candidate for a higher degree who is appointed for one or more terms not to exceed four consecutive years, to assist the Department or one of its regular members in research and other academic work.

The stipend of a Departmental Research Assistant I is at the rate of $375 a term for 10 hours of service a week. Tuition exemption is granted up to 15 points a term, or the equivalent if the appointee is a student in Graduate Faculties, —both stipend and tuition exemption to be prorated for a lesser assignment.

The stipend of a Departmental Research Assistant II is at the rate of $550 a term for 10 hours of service a week. No tuition exemption is granted for this rank.
Reader A Reader is a full-time candidate for a higher degree who is appointed for one or more terms, not to exceed four consecutive years, to read and grade papers, take attendance, proctor examinations, and perform other similar functions as may be required by the departmental supervisor of assistants.

A Reader’s stipend ranges from $100 to $300 a term, depending on the estimated number of hours of service. A Reader is entitled to tuition exemption up to 6 points a term or the equivalent if the appointee is a student in Graduate Faculties.

Please refer all questions concerning this Memorandum to:

Mr. John C. Graham
Assistant to the Secretary
213 Low Memorial Library
Extension 2570

 

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Columbia University Department of Economics Collection, Carl Shoup Materials, Box 10, Folder “Columbia University. General”.

Image Source: Low Memorial Library, Columbia University from the Tichnor Brothers Collection, New York Postcards, at the Boston Public Library, Print Department.

Categories
Chicago Columbia Economists

Columbia. George Stigler reviews the department of economics, 1978

 

Somewhere between bibliometric departmental rankings and formal visiting committees lie the relatively casual responses to requests for outside opinions solicited by university administrators. In this post George Stigler provides his brief assessment of where the Columbia economics department was at the end of 1978 and what could be done to improve its relative standing.

Stigler’s message was essentially to add “More Cowbell“, i.e. outside hires of senior heavy-weights as opposed to the selection and cultivation of internal candidates for promotion.

As a former active “area expert” on the GDR economy, I am delighted to have found this explicit obiter dicta that expresses Stigler’s contempt for regional studies. 

“I also approve of [the Columbia economics department’s] conscious policy of withdrawing from the quite excessive number of special geographical area commitments into which Columbia entered.” 

Also worth noting is that Edmund Phelp’s “departure” from Columbia  lasted only 1978-79. Because of a salary dispute, Phelps left Columbia for New York University. Perhaps Stigler’s letter helped warm the Columbia administration to accepting Phelp’s terms (which they did and Edmund Phelps indeed returned the next year).

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Stigler’s View of Columbia from Chicago

December 8, 1978

Professors Louis Henkin and Steven Marcus
Columbia University
211 Low Memorial Library
New York, New York 10027

Dear Professors Henkin and Marcus:

Let me attempt to reply to your inquiries about the Department of Economics.

  1. The department was probably rated too low in 1969, and I think it is about as strong today relative to other universities, yielding a ranking around 9th or 10th. The department has suffered 2 major losses in the past decade or so (Becker and Phelps) but made a number of excellent appointments of younger people and one almost major appointment (Mundell, who dominated international trade theory in the 1960’s but has apparently stopped working). The department lacks flashy, controversial figures and this may account for its unduly low ratings. But the fact is that it is a good department.
  2. I would not quarrel with its size or general balance. I also approve of its conscious policy of withdrawing from the quite excessive number of special geographical area commitments into which Columbia entered.
  3. The department is especially strong in international trade. I consider it seriously weak in the basic fields of microeconomics and industrial organization, even though Lancaster is very good,—I would consider this its top need. There is some weakness in macroeconomics: Cagan is no longer a major figure, and Phelps’ departure emphasizes the weakness in the area. Mincer is superb in labor economics.
  4. There is strength in the intermediate levels, with good appointments such as Taylor and Calvo and Rodriguez. I do not know many of the assistant professors, and have only a mild suspicion that they are mostly not first class.

On reflection, in the last decade the department has not made a single appointment (except possibly Dhrymes and still more uncertainly Mundell) who would be considered a catch by the other major economics departments. While Harvard was getting Jorgenson and Griliches and Arrow, and Chicago was getting Becker and Lucas and Rosen, Columbia was making good junior appointments. I believe that it is a rule that a major department will make most of its senior appointments from outside, not by promotion. If I am right, the department will not rise in relative standing until it is ready and able to draw in major scholars at the height of their productive careers. It now contains major scholars such as Vickrey and Mincer—will it be able to replace them?

Sincerely,

George J. Stigler

GJS:ip

 

Source:  University of Chicago Archives. George Stigler Papers, Box 3. Folder “U of C, ECON./MISCELLANEOUS”.

Image Source: George J. Stigler, University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-13366, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

Categories
Columbia Economists Race Social Work Yale

Columbia’s first African American Ph.D. Social Economics Ph.D. alumnus, George Edmund Haynes, 1912

 

Early in the twentieth century disciplinary borders in the social sciences were considerably more porous than by mid-century. Sociology, while already a distinct department at Chicago on a par with the department of political economy, either shared a broader social scientific condominium with economics and other disciplines as in the Faculty of Political Science at Columbia  or it was a subordinate field within an economics department, e.g. at Harvard. This is the main reason for residual ambiguity in the attribution of a disciplinary identity to some of the scholars who earned their doctorates back in that day. 

Today’s addition to the series “Meet an economics Ph.D. alumnus/a” is precisely such a case. The African American George Edmund Haynes (Columbia Ph.D., 1912) was the first African American to be awarded a doctorate by Columbia University and like the first African American to be awarded a Ph.D. at Harvard, W.E.B. Du Bois (1895), taught both economics and sociology during his early academic career. Where Du Bois brought an historian’s lens to his work, Haynes brought that of a social worker to his, having studied at the New York School of Philanthropy following his M.A. from Yale.

In the current discussion of structural racism in U.S. society in general and in academic economics in particular, the careers of Du Bois and Haynes suggest that “The Negro Problem” had been outsourced from academic economics in a way that “The Labor Problem” never was. African American men and women interested in the economics of race found homes in schools of social work and separate departments of sociology (or in traditional Black colleges). Analogously those women interested in the economics of families and consumption more often were expected to enter departments of home economics. 

This post provides three brief internet biographies about George Edmund Haynes in which I have linked wherever possible to his writings available on the internet. Details of Haynes’ academic whereabouts were confirmed from official publications of Fisk University and Columbia University and appended to the post.

The next post provides the social science curriculum developed by Haynes at Fisk University shortly after he was awarded his doctorate from Columbia.

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Fun Fact: Jared Bernstein received his Ph.D. in Social Welfare from the Columbia University School of Social Work, the ultimate successor to the New York School of Philanthropy (that in 1917 had morphed into the New York School of Social Work). Jared Bernstein served as Chief Economist and Economic Adviser to Vice President Joseph Biden so perhaps we find ourselves on the cusp of an inclusionary revolution in economics.

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Research Tip

“Memoirs” ca. 1950 unpublished autobiography “in the possession of his widow” cited p. 482 in Guichard Parris and Lester Brooks Blacks in the City: A History of the National Urban League. Little, Brown, 1971.
Where are the memoirs now?

Tip of the hat to: Francille Rusan Wilson for her book, The Segregated Scholars: Black Social Scientists and the Creation of Black Labor Studies, 1890-1950 (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2006), pp. 61-66 on George Edmund Haynes’ early academic years.

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From the Preface to Haynes’ dissertation:

“This study was begun as one of the several researches of the Bureau of Social Research of the New York School of Philanthropy, largely at the suggestion of Dr. Samuel McCune Lindsay, the director, to whose interest, advice and sympathy its completion is largely due…
…The material was gathered between January, 1909, and January, 1910, except about four weeks in August, 1909, during the time that I was pursuing studies at the School of Philanthropy and at Columbia University…
…I wish to acknowledge especially the help of Dr. William L. Bulkley in making possible many of the interviews with wage-earners, or Dr. Roswell C. McCrea for criticism and encouragement in preparation of the monograph, and of Dr. E.E. Pratt, sometime fellow of the Bureau of Social Research; Miss Dora Sandowsky for her careful and painstaking tabulation of most of the figures.”

Source: The Negro at Work in New York City—A Study in Economic Progress published in the series Studies in History, Economic and Public Law, Vol. 29, No. 3 (1912),p. 7.

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Dr. George Edmund Haynes  (1880 – January 8, 1960)
Social Worker, Reformer, Educator and Co-Founder of the National Urban League.

NOTE: …  Much of the entry was excerpted from the booklet “The National Urban League: 100 years of Empowering Communities” authored by Anne Nixon and produced by The Human Spirit Initiative, an organization with a mission to inspire people to desire to make a difference and then act on it….

Introduction: The National Urban League was established in 1910 through the efforts of George Edmund Haynes and Ruth Standish Baldwin, the Urban League is the nation’s oldest and largest community- based movement devoted to empowering African Americans to enter the economic and social mainstream. Today, the National Urban League, headquartered in New York City, spearheads the non-partisan efforts of its local affiliates. There are over 100 local affiliates of the National Urban League located in 35 states and the District of Columbia providing direct services to more than 2 million people nationwide through programs, advocacy and research. The mission of the Urban League movement is to enable African Americans to secure economic self-reliance, parity, power and civil rights. (Source: www.nul.org, July 2006)

Background: The National Urban League was founded in 1910. The Civil War between North and South had ended forty-five years before, but the country was still deeply divided, and most former slaves remained locked in a system of political powerlessness and economic inequality. The new organization set two major goals – remove barriers to racial equality and achieve economic empowerment for the country’s Negro citizens.

Slavery had been abolished in 1865 by the 13th amendment to the United States Constitution. The 14th and 15th amendments went further and guaranteed equal treatment to Negroes and gave Negro men the right to vote. Despite these Constitutional protections, the civil war continued to rage in the hearts and minds of white Southerners. They were resigned to the abolition of slavery but were not willing to accept either social change or political domination by former slaves.

[…]

The alternatives for former slaves were limited. They could work for white farmers as tenants or sharecroppers, barely a step above slavery, or they could leave the South. Many opted to migrate and moved north to find a better life. Two people stepped forward at this time to provide leadership and help build an organization dedicated to empowering African Americans to enter the economic and social mainstream – one Negro, one white; one man, one woman – and together, they founded the National Urban League.

Their names were George Edmund Haynes and Ruth Standish Baldwin.  Mrs. Baldwin came from a family of early New England colonists with a history of social activism. Her father was the editor of the Springfield (Massachusetts) Republican. A graduate of Smith College, she was the wife of William Henry Baldwin, Jr., president of the Long Island Railroad. She was active in the National League for the Protection of Colored Women (NLPCW) – an organization formed to help protect Negro women new to Northern cities.

George Edmund Haynes, unlike Ruth Standish Baldwin, did not come from a background of privilege. His father was a laborer, and his mother was a domestic servant with great ambitions for her son. When George Haynes completed his elementary education, the family moved from his birthplace in Pine Bluff, Arkansas to the more cosmopolitan community of Hot Springs. At a point in history when educational opportunities for Negroes ranged from limited to nonexistent, George Haynes’ achievements were astonishing. In Hot Springs, he completed the limited educational opportunities available and went on to take high school level courses and college preparatory studies at the Agricultural and Mechanical University in Huntsville, Alabama. He received his bachelor’s degree from Nashville, Tennessee’s Fisk University and then a master’s degree from Yale. Because he was an outstanding student, Yale awarded him an academic scholarship, and he waited tables and stoked furnaces for his room and board.

His varied and distinguished career began immediately after the Yale years. His first job was with the Colored Men’s Department of the International YMCA, where his visits to Negro colleges and universities broadened his horizons. But his academic studies continued, and he added to his reputation as a brilliant scholar. While studying at the University of Chicago during the summers of 1906 and 1907, Dr. Haynes became interested in social problems affecting black migrants from the South. This interest led him to the New York School of Philanthropy, from which he graduated in 1910. Two years later he received a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Columbia University Press published his doctoral dissertation, The Negro at Work in New York City [— A Study in Economic Progress]. He had the distinction of being the first Negro to receive a Ph.D. degree from Columbia University.

Within this period, he also involved himself in the activities of the American Association for the Protection of Colored Women, the Committee for Improving the Industrial Conditions of Negroes in New York, and the Committee on Urban Conditions Among Negroes. Dr. Haynes was a man of many talents with an extraordinary number of professional commitments. In addition to being a co-founder of the National Urban League, he also founded and directed the Department of Social Sciences at Fisk University. At Fisk, his students trained at the Bethlehem Training Center that he had established as part of the Social Science Department. As part of their training, they did field work in existing agencies, and many were assigned to local affiliates of the National Urban League (i.e., Philadelphia, St. Louis, Nashville, Baltimore, Memphis, and Louisville). This model program was repeated at the University of Pittsburgh, Columbia University, and New York University.

Dr. Haynes served as executive director of the National Urban League from 1910 to 1918. He also established the Association of Negro Colleges and Secondary Schools, and served that organization as secretary from 1910 to 1918. He helped the New York School of Philanthropy and NLUCAN in collaborative planning that led to the establishment of the first social work training center for black graduate students at Fisk, and he directed that center from 1910-1918.

From 1918 to 1921, he served as Director of Negro Economics in the United States Department of Labor. As a special assistant to the Secretary of Labor, he was involved in matters of racial conflict in employment, housing, and recreation. He continued his earlier studies of exclusion of black workers from certain trade unions, interracial conditions in the workplace, and child labor. These studies resulted in numerous scholarly works. One of the most significant of these was The Negro at Work During the World War and During Reconstruction. The work’s widespread and profound impact resulted in his appointment as a member of the President’s Unemployment Conference in 1921.

In 1930 Dr. Haynes conducted a survey of the work of the YMCA in South Africa, and in 1947 he managed a similar study of the organization’s activities in other African nations. These efforts resulted in his being chosen as consultant on Africa by the World Committee of YMCAs. His book, Trend of the Races (1922), reflected his belief in the union of all people.

For the last nine years of his life, Dr. Haynes taught at the City College of New York and served as an officer of the American Committee on Africa. Dr. Haynes died in New York City in 1960.

Dr. George Edmund Haynes and Ruth Standish Baldwin have been memorialized with a plaque in the The Extra Mile — Points of Light Volunteer Pathway located on the sidewalks of downtown Washington, D.C. The Extra Mile Pathway is a program of Points of Light Institute, dedicated to inspire, mobilize and equip individuals to volunteer and serve. The Extra Mile was approved by Congress and the District of Columbia. It is funded entirely by private sources.

In 1917, Dr. Haynes made a presentation at the National Conference on Social Welfare on the migration of Negroes to northern cities. It can be viewed on the ERAS section under Civil Rights or linked directly: The Migration Of Negroes Into Northern Cities: By George E. Haynes, Ph. D., Executive Secretary of the National League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes

For further reading:

Carlton-La Ney, Iris (1983) “Notes on a Forgotten Black Social Worker and Sociologist: George Edmund Haynes,” The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare: Vol. 10 : Iss. 3 , Article 14.

Interracial Conference of Church Women, Eagles Mere, Pa., September 21-22, 1926, Social Welfare History Portal.

Source: Nixon, A. (n.d.). Julia Clifford Lathrop (1858-1932): Dr. George Edmund Haynes (1880 – January 8, 1960) – Social worker, reformer, educator and co-founder of the National Urban League. Social Welfare History Project. Retrieved July 31, 2020 from http://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/social-work/haynes-george-edmund/

Archived copy at the Internet Archive WaybackMachine.

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George Edmund Haynes
by Reavis L. Mitchell, Jr.

Born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, George E. Haynes was the only child of Louis and Mattie Sloan Haynes. At a young age he moved with his parents to New York, where he spent his youth. In 1903 he received his B.A. from Fisk University, he earned his M.A. from Yale University in 1904, and in 1912 he became the first African American awarded the Doctor of Philosophy degree from Columbia University.

In 1910 George Haynes married Elizabeth Ross of Montgomery, Alabama; they became the parents of one child, George Edmund Haynes Jr. After their marriage, the couple resided in New York, where Haynes studied social science and economics. He developed an acute awareness of the impact of socioeconomic readjustment upon African Americans who migrated northward from the South. Shortly after his marriage in 1910, he joined with Frances Kellor and Ruth Baldwin to establish the National Urban League for assisting those making the transition from agrarian to urban living.

Haynes accepted a faculty position at Fisk University in 1912. His intense interest in America’s changing social fabric prompted his leadership in establishing Fisk’s department of social sciences and an academic program to train professional social workers. By 1914 he had developed the first college-level course on the history of African Americans. His research on the African American adjustment to a predominately white society earned Haynes acclaim as a leader in the study of racial affairs.

Haynes emerged as a leader in efforts to bring Nashville’s white and African American communities together. Bethlehem House, a settlement house first proposed in 1907 by Fisk graduate Sallie Hill Sawyer and enlarged in 1913 by the addition of a kindergarten and clinic, became the “hands-on” training center for Professor Haynes’s social science students. The settlement house concept, patterned after the British movement of the 1880s, began to gather momentum in America in the early 1900s. By 1915 the Bethlehem Settlement House was the product of very advanced social theory put into action–especially in the turn-of-the-century South. Fisk University’s involvement with Bethlehem House supported the reality of whites and African Americans working together to provide social services.

In 1916, when a fire devastated East Nashville, the African American community suffered extensively. In the charred aftermath of this horrendous fire, Haynes’s Fisk University students offered assistance to the fire victims as they struggled to cope with their losses.

Two years later, Haynes left Tennessee for Washington, where he was appointed special assistant to the U.S. secretary of labor, serving until 1921, when he became cofounder and first executive secretary of the Department of Race Relations of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America. For the next twenty-six years, he remained with the council in New York City and became a visionary leader of the city’s African American community. In the late 1940s, for example, Haynes organized the Interracial Clinic, which promoted interracial understanding and easing of racial tensions. In 1955 he was appointed to the New York University Board of Trustees, becoming the first African American appointed to a major American university’s board. After his wife’s death in 1953, Haynes remarried in 1955 to Olyve Jeter of Mount Vernon, New York, where the couple made their home. Haynes died in 1960 at Mount Vernon.

Suggested Reading

Reavis L. Mitchell Jr., Fisk University Since 1866: The Loyal Children Make Their Way (1995).

Source: The Tennessee Historical Society, Tennessee Encyclopedia website. “George Edmund Haynes” by Reavis L. Mitchell, Jr.

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George Edmund Haynes (1880-1960)
by Jessica Salo

Author, educator and organizer George Edmund Haynes was a social scientist, religious leader and pioneer in social work education for African Americans. Born in 1880 to Louis and Mattie Haynes in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, George Haynes was the oldest of two children of a domestic worker mother and day laborer father. He was educated in the segregated and unequal school system of Pine Bluff, Arkansas.  Eventually his family moved to Hot Springs, Arkansas to pursue greater educational opportunities for the Haynes children.

In 1893 at the age of thirteen, Haynes attended the Chicago World’s Fair where for the first time he witnessed discussions about the problems affecting African Americans. It was here he first heard about the “Negro Problem” and a variety of possible solutions including emigration to Africa.

Haynes’s experience at the World’s Fair motivated him to pursue higher education.  With the support of his mother he enrolled at the Agriculture and Mechanical College for Negroes at Normal, Alabama. After a year he transferred to Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, where he eventually earned his B.A. degree in 1903. Haynes was admitted to Yale Graduate School where he earned his M.A. in 1904.

Haynes in 1905 began his career at the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) working with African American youth in the Association’s Colored Men’s Department. In 1905 and 1906, with the support of the YMCA, he toured the South and visited almost all of the African American colleges to assess black higher education. During this time Haynes met and married Elizabeth Ross who was engaged in similar work with African American women.

While working at the YMCA, he enrolled at the University of Chicago during the summers of 1906 and 1907. He then moved to New York and attended the New York School of Philanthropy (later called the New York School of Social Work of Columbia University) and was its first African American graduate in 1910. Two years later he became the first African American to earn a Ph.D. in economics from Columbia.

George Haynes, upon graduation found himself in New York at the beginning of the Great Migration of African Americans from the South to the urban North, and in particular, New York City.  The migration became an important issue for social scientists.  Haynes, the activist, became involved with various organizations that hoped to ease the transition of the Southern newcomers to the city.  The organizations included the Association for the Protection of Colored Women, the Committee for Improving the Industrial Conditions of the Negroes of New York, and the Committee on Urban Conditions among Negroes.  In 1910 Haynes and white reformer, Ruth Standish Baldwin, brought these three organizations together into the National League on Urban Conditions or the National Urban League (NUL).  Haynes became the first Executive Secretary of the NUL, a post he held between 1910 and 1917.

Haynes, used his work with black migrants as the basis for his 1912 Columbia University dissertation, “The Negro at Work in New York” which was later published by Columbia University Press under the same title.

After completing his dissertation Haynes was hired by Fisk University.  Between 1913 and 1917, he split his time between New York and Nashville, working directly on black community issues related to the Great Migration while teaching the next generation of social scientists who would succeed him.

In 1918, Haynes went to Washington, D.C. where he became a special assistant (with the title Director of Negro Economics) to the Secretary of Labor, a post he held until 1921.  While at the Department of Labor, Haynes conducted surveys and provided analysis and recommendations to the U.S. government on the most effective way to utilize the new Northern black industrial workers.  Much of his federally-sponsored research was published in 1921 as The Negro at Work During the World War and During Reconstruction.  Haynes and Emmett Scott who worked in a similar capacity in the War Department during this period, were the highest ranking black federal employees and the first to have influence at the Cabinet level.

In 1921 Haynes became the first Executive Secretary of the Department of Race Relations for the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America. Here he applied his study and analysis to the question of race and religion in Ameican society for the Council until his retirement in 1947.  In 1930 Haynes conducted surveys for the YMCA of South Africa and in the 1940s did much the same for other African nations.  His Africa work brought international prominence to his research.

Even after retirement in 1947, Haynes remained involved in race relations work while teaching courses at the City College of the City University of New York including one of the first courses on African American history presented in a predominately white institution. In 1948 Haynes was appointed to the first Board of Trustees of the new State University of New York (SUNY) system.  He also published one book, Africa, the Continent of the Future in 1950.

George Edmund Haynes died in New York City in 1960.  Many of his manuscript and papers are preserved in the George Edmund Haynes Collection at Yale University and at the Erastus Milo Cravath Library at Fisk University.

Source:  Jessica Salo, “George Edmund Haynes (1880-1960)” article at the Website: BlackPast.

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Other publications
by George Edmund Haynes

“Co-operation with Colleges in Securing and Training Negro Social Workers for Urban Conditions,” Proceedings of the National Conference of Charities and Corrections 38: 384-387.

Negro New-Comers in Detroit, Michigan: A Challenge to Christian Statesmanship, A Preliminary Survey. New York: Home Missions Council, 1918.

“Negro Migration—its Effects on Family and Community Life in the North,” Proceedings of the National Conference of Social Work 51: 62-75.

Cotton Growing Communities (with Benson Y. Landis), 1934.

Africa, Continent of the Future. New York (The Association Press) and Geneva (World’s Committee of Young Men’s Christian Associations), 1951.

“The Birth and Childhood of the National Urban League,” The National Urban League 50th Anniversary Year Book (1960), 1-12.

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Ph.D. Columbia University, 1912

George Edmund Haynes

A.B. Fisk 1903, A.M. Yale 1904
Dissertation: The negro at work in New York City

Source: Columbia University, One Hundred and Fifty-eighth Annual Commencement (June 5, 1912), p. 40.

 

George Edmund Haynes,

Ph.D., 12; A.B., 03, Fisk Univ.; A.M., 04, Yale; Prof. Social Science Fisk Univ.; Ex-Sec. Natl. League on Urban Conditions among Negroes; mem. Am. Acad. Pol. And Social Sci.; Am. Economics Assn.; Am. Social and Natl. Geographic Socs. Fisk University and 1611 Harding St., Nashville, Tenn.

Source: Catalogue of Officers and Graduates of Columbia University (XVI edition). New York, 1916, p. 1065.

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From Fisk University Catalogues

College Alumni
Class 1903

George Edmund Haynes, B.A.; A.M., Student. Graduate School, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.

Source: Catalogue of the Officers, Students and Alumni of Fisk University, 1904-1905, p. 79.

College Alumni
Class 1903

George Edmund Haynes, B.A.; A.M., Assistant Secretary, College Y.M.C.A., Atlanta, Ga.

Source: Catalogue of the Officers, Students and Alumni of Fisk University, 1905-1906, p. 79.

Alumni
Class 1903

George Edmund Haynes, B.A.; A.M., Yale University, 1904; Secretary International Committee, College Y.M.C.A., Atlanta, Ga.

Source: Catalogue of the Officers, Students and Alumni of Fisk University, 1906-1907, p.85.

Alumni
Class 1903

George Edmund Haynes, B.A.; A.M., Yale University, 1904; Secretary International Committee, College Y.M.C.A., Atlanta, Ga.

Source: Catalogue of the Officers, Students and Alumni of Fisk University, 1907-1908, p. 86.

College Alumni
Class 1903

George Edmund Haynes, B.A.; A.M., Yale University, 1904; Junior Fellow, Bureau of Social Research, The New York School of Philanthropy; Graduate Student Columbia University; 219 West 134th Street, New York City.

Source: Catalogue of the Officers, Students and Alumni of Fisk University, 1908-1909, p.95.

College Alumni
Class 1903

George Edmund Haynes, B.A.; A.M., Yale University, 1904; Junior Fellow, Bureau of Social Research, The New York School of Philanthropy; Graduate Student Columbia University; 219 West One-Hundred and Thirty-fourth Street, New York City.

Source: Catalogue of the Officers, Students and Alumni of Fisk University, 1909-1910, p. 71.

Faculty and Officers

George Edmund Haynes, M.A.
Associate Professor of Social Science

Source: Catalogue Number 1910-1911, Fisk University News, Vol. II, No. 2 (March, 1911), p. 5.

Events on the Campus

October 28.—Lecture on “What Sociology is About,” by Prof. G. E. Haynes.

Source: Catalogue Number 1910-1911, Fisk University News, Vol. II, No. 2 (March, 1911), p. 15.

Class Alumni
Class 1903

George Edmund Haynes, B.A.; M.A., Yale University, 1904; Graduate, The New York School of Philanthropy, 1910; Associate Professor Sociology [sic], Fisk University, 1033 Twelfth Avenue, N., Nashville.

Source: Catalogue Number 1910-1911,Fisk University News, Vol. II, No. 2 (March, 1911), p. 89.

Faculty and Officers

George Edmund Haynes, M.A.
Professor of Social Science

Source: Catalogue Number 1911-1912 (2nd ed.), Fisk University News, Vol. III, No. 3 (May, 1912), p. 5.

College Alumni
Class 1903

George Edmund Haynes, B.A.; M.A., Yale University, 1904; Graduate, The New York School of Philanthropy, 1910; Professor Social Science, Fisk University; Director, National League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes, 1033 Twelfth Avenue, N., Nashville.

Source: Catalogue Number 1911-1912 (2nd ed.), Fisk University News, Vol. III, No. 3 (May, 1912), p. 96.

Faculty and Officers

George Edmund Haynes, M.A.
Professor of Social Science

Source: Catalogue Number 1912-1913, Fisk University News, Vol. IV, No. 3 (May, 1912), p. 5.

 

Image Source:  U. S. National Archives. Rediscovering Black History website. Post by Gabrielle Hutchins “Dr. George Edmund Haynes: Social Crusader in Black Economics” (July 8, 2020).

 

Categories
Columbia Economists

Columbia. Economics PhD alumnus. Milton Moss, 1962

 

The previous post provided a transcription of the 1986 syllabus for Milton Moss’s course at the University of Maryland “The Development of Economic Ideas” that turned up in the J. Herbert Furth papers at the Hoover Institution Archives. Since Milton Moss is hardly a household name, today’s post introduces the minor Milton as our newest entry to the Meet-an-Economics-PhD-Alumna/us series. His “greatest hit” appears to be the 1973 NBER volume that he edited, The Measurement of Social and Economic Performance.

Fun Fact:  Moss’s father-in-law (Naum Jasny) was a renowned expert on Soviet agriculture–see the biographical note included at the end of this post.

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Details from the Life and Career of Milton Moss
Columbia Ph.D. (1962)

1915. Milton Moss born February 3 in New York City. Parents: Edward and Fannie Moss.

1935. B.S.S., City College of the City University of New York (CUNY).

1937. M.A. from Columbia University. Thesis: A sociological view of Thorstein Veblen.

1941. Marriage to Tatyana Jasny May 31, 1941 in Manhattan. [Children: Philip I. and Lynda M. Moss.]

1948. Sales finance company operations in 1947 in Federal Reserve Bulletin (July 1948), pp. 781-786.

1949. A study of instalment credit terms, Federal Reserve Bulletin (Dec 1949), pp. 1442-1449.

1955. “Monthly Production Indexes and Changes in Output per Manhour,” in American Statistical Association Proceedings of the Business and Economic Statistics Section, 1955. Washington: American Statistical Association.

1957. “Industrial Activity and Productivity” published in American Statistical Association, Proceedings of the Business and Economic Statistics Section.

1961. Comment on V. R. Berlinguette and F. H. Leacy, The Estimation of Real Domestic Product by Final Expenditure Categories and by Industry of Origin in Canada. Chapter 6 in NBER, Output, Input, and Productivity Measurement, Vol. 25 by the Conference on Research in Income and Wealth. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

1961. Leave of absence from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve to complete his Ph.D.

1962. Ph.D. thesis. Columbia University. Dissertation: Short-run changes in consumer demand; a study in methods of observation with special reference to automobile demand.

1968. Needs for Consistency and Flexibility in Measures of Real Product by Industry, Review of Income and Wealth, Volume 14, number 3,  pp. 1-17

1968. Chapter 9. Consumption: A Report on Contemporary Issues, pp. 449-524, in Eleanor Bernert Sheldon and Wilbert E. Moore (eds), Indicators of Social Change: Concepts and Measurements. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

1968. Comment on Comparison of Federal Reserve and OBE Measures of Real Manufacturing Output, 1947-64 by Jack J. Gottsegen and Richard C. Ziemer. Chapter 8 in NBER The Industrial Composition of Income and Product, Vol. 32, Conference on Research in Income and Wealth, John W. Kendrick, ed. New York: Columbia University Press.

1973. NBER. The Measurement of Social and Economic Performance, ed. by Milton Moss. New York: Columbia University Press.

1980. Social Challenges to Economic Accounting and Economic Challenges to Social Accounting, Review of Income and Wealth, Volume 26, Number 3, pp. 1-17.

2009. Died January 1 in Silver Spring, Maryland.

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Washington Post obit
January 11, 2009

Milton Moss (Age 93) On January 1, 2009 at Riderwood Village, Silver Spring, MD. He is survived by his wife of 67 years, Tatyana J. Moss; his daughter, Lynda M. Moss of Winston-Salem, NC, his son, Philip I. Moss of Brookline, MA, and his grandchildren, William B. Moss and Tatyana L. Moss.

Source: Published in The Washington Post on Jan. 11, 2009.

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Federal Statistical Directory, 1967.

Executive Office of the President. Bureau of the Budget. Office of Statistical Standards.
Milton Moss, Assistant Chief, National Economic Accounts.

Assignment Area: National accounts, savings and productivity, balance of payments.

1969 AEA Biographical Listing, p. 309.

MOSS, Milton. Government; b. New York City, 1915; B.S., City Coll. N.Y., 1935; M.A., Columbia, 1937, Ph.D., 1962. Economist, Bd. Of Govrs. Of Fed. Res. System, 1942-62; asst. dir., office of statistic standards, Bur. of the Budget since 1962. ADDRESS 8504 WHITTIER BLVD., BETHESDA, MD 20034

Federal Statistical Directory, 1970

Executive Office of the President. Office of Management and the Budget. Statistical Policy and Management Information Systems Division.
Milton Moss. Chief, Social and Economics Statistics Systems Branch

1985 AEA Biographical Listing, p. 371

MOSS, MILTON, 8504 Whittier Blvd, Bethesda, Md 20817. Fields: 030, 220. Birth Yr: 1915. Degrees: B.S.S., City Coll. of CUNY, 1935; M.A., Columbia U., 1937; Ph.D., Columbia U. 1962. Prin. Cur. Position: Lectr. U. of Md., 1981. Concurrrent/Past Positions. Adj. Prof., U. of Pa., 1978-81; Sr. Res. Consult., U. of Mich., 1973-75. Research: Hist. of thought.

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Milton Moss’s Father-in-law, Naum Jasny

JASNY, NAUM (1883–1967), economist. Born in Kharkov, Ukraine, Jasny obtained a doctorate in law in St. Petersburg (Leningrad). Jasny practiced law for a short time, and then became director of a flour mill in Kharkov, an experience which aroused his interest in economics. After the Russian Revolution he worked on designing food policies for the Soviet government, for which he later undertook economic research in Germany. While there he joined the Business Cycle Research Institute and in 1933, with the coming of Hitler, he moved to the United States where he was appointed senior economist with the Department of Agriculture. From 1939 he was with the Food Research Institute of Stanford University where he prepared forecasts of food availability in allied and enemy countries. After World War II, he worked with the Stanford Soviet Economic Group. Jasny’s main interests were agricultural statistics and economics. His estimates of grain harvests in the U.S.S.R. served for many years as the basis for the investigations into the Soviet military potential. Among Jasny‘s major works are The Socialized Agriculture of the U.S.S.R. (1949); The Wheats of Classical Antiquity (1944); Soviet Industrialization 1928–52 (1961); Soviet Planning (1964), edited by J.T. Degras and A. Nove; and Khrushchev’s Crop Policy (1965). His memoirs were being prepared for publication at the time of his death.

Source: Web article from Encyclopaedia Judaica.

 

Image Source: “Alma Mater in 2020” by Andrew Henkelman (Creative Commons Licence 4.0) in Wikipedia.

Categories
Columbia Cornell Duke Economists

Columbia. Economics PhD alumnus, later first Duke grad school dean, William Henry Glasson

 

Today’s post, another in the series “Meet an economics Ph.D. alumnus/a…”, comes from a tip provided Economics in the Rear-view Mirror by friend of the blog, Roy Weintraub of Duke University. William Henry Glasson received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1900 and was appointed professor of political economy and social science at Trinity College in 1902. When Trinity College evolved into Duke University in the 1920s, Glasson played a pivotal role in establishing graduate education in Durham, North Carolina. 

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Miscellany

  • Acknowledgements in Glasson’s thesis: Professor J. W. Jenks of Cornell University who suggested the subject of military pension legislation. Thesis advisers Professsor H. R. Seager of the University of Pennsylvania and Professor F. J. Goodnow of Columbia University.
  • William H. Glasson. “Some Economic Effects of the World War” in Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Session of the State Literary and Historical Association of North Carolina, Raleigh, N.C. (November 20-21, 1919), pp. 96-104.

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Short Biographical Note

William Henry Glasson was born in Troy, NY. on July 26, 1874. He received his Ph.B. from Cornell University in 1896 and his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1900. Glasson was head of the Dept. of History and Civics at the George School (Newton, Pa.) from 1899-1902. He came to Trinity College in 1902. During this tenure at Trinity and Duke University, Glasson was instrumental in the development of the Dept. of Economics and the Graduate School. He was Professor of Political Economy and Social Science from 1902-1940; appointed in charge of the establishment of the retirement annuity plan for the faculty and administration; the head of the department of economics and business administration; chairman of the faculty committee on graduate instruction; and Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences from 1926-1938. Glasson was secretary of the Phi Beta Kappa Society for the South Atlantic district; editor of the South Atlantic Quarterly from 1905-1909; and a member of the Durham Board of Education.

Source:  Duke University. Duke University Archives. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library. William Henry Glasson papers, 1891-1946.

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William Henry Glasson, 1874-1946

William Henry Glasson (26 July 1874-11 Nov. 1946), economist, first dean of the Duke University Graduate School, author, and editor, was born in Troy, N. Y. A first-generation American whose parents had emigrated from England shortly before his birth, he was the son of John Glasson, a native of Cornwall, and Agnes Allen Pleming Glasson, the daughter of a master tailor in Probus. He received the Ph.B. degree from Cornell University in 1896, the Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1900, and the LL.D. from Duke University in 1939.

Glasson began his professional career as a fellow in political economy and finance at Cornell (1896-97), Harrison Fellow of Economics, University of Pennsylvania (1897-98); and fellow in administration, Columbia University (1898-99). From 1899 to 1902 he was head of the history and civics department in the George School, Newtown, Pa. He became professor of political economy and social science at Trinity College in 1902; was appointed chairman of the faculty committee on graduate instruction in September 1916, when the college had only six graduate students; and was named the first dean of the graduate school of arts and sciences at Duke University in 1926, in which capacity he served until 1938. By that time 249 graduate students were enrolled. Glasson continued to teach at Duke until 1940. He was also professor of economics during the summer session at Cornell University in 1907, acting professor of economics and politics at Cornell in 1910-11, nonresident lecturer at Johns Hopkins University during the spring of 1913, and professor of economics at the University of Virginia during the summer quarter of 1928.

In addition to his teaching and administrative responsibilities, he was coeditor of the South Atlantic Quarterly with Edwin Mims (1905-9); and both joint editor with President William P. Few, of Trinity College, and managing editor of the Quarterly (1909-19). He also served as advisory editor of the National Municipal Review (1912-22). From 1940 to 1945 he was a director of the South Atlantic Publishing Company. An authority on the U.S. pension system, Glasson was the author of History of Military Pension Legislation in the United States (1900) [Columbia University Ph.D. thesis] and Federal Military Pensions in the United States (1918) [published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Division of Economics and History], as well as a contributor to The South in the Building of the Nation (1910) and the Cyclopaedia of American Government (1913). Many of his articles appeared in the South Atlantic Quarterly(1905-19), Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, National Municipal Review, Review of Reviews, Survey, the publications of the American Economics Association and of the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association, and other economic and historical periodicals. He contributed poetry to various newspapers and magazines, and in 1945 was a feature writer for the Cornell Countryman.

His influence extended far beyond university campuses and scholarly publications. When he gave up the deanship of the graduate school in 1938, A. A. Wilkinson, director of the Duke University News Service, wrote: “It is entirely no coincidence that Dean Glasson’s years of activity have paralleled development in the educational, economic, and social life of the South: he has had a definite part in those phases of life that have come within the range of his participation.” His academic and other achievements were often so closely interwoven that they cannot be easily separated.

Glasson’s first experience in helping to mold public opinion came with his involvement in the famous Bassett case, which centered national attention on Trinity College and, in particular, John Spencer Bassett, who was being excoriated by much of the southern press for an opinion he had stated in the South Atlantic Quarterly of October 1903. The affair was concluded when Trinity College took a strong, unequivocal stand on academic freedom. Glasson served on the committee that wrote the memorable document on the subject which was duly signed by the faculty and accepted by the college trustees on 1 Dec. 1903.

As early as 1909 he was an advocate of the Australian ballot in North Carolina elections. Also in 1909, he was appointed by President William H. Taft to serve as the supervisor of the U.S. Census of 1910 for the Fifth District of North Carolina. He resigned after a few months, however, because of the political opposition of John Motley Morehead, Republican congressman from the district. (His objection was that Glasson had not been born and reared in the state.) During 1913-18 Glasson was a collaborator in the division of economics and history of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Soon after World War I Mayor John M. Manning appointed him a member of the Durham City Housing Commission; from 1919 to 1923 he was on the City Board of Education. For many years he was a director of the Home Building and Loan Association and of the Morris Plan Industrial Bank. Because of his early interest in medical insurance, he became one of the first directors and vice-president of the Hospital Care Association of North Carolina (1933-35). In the summer of 1934 he visited Germany on the Carl Schurz goodwill tour, visiting a number of cities including those in the Saar district. He was appointed by Governor J. C. B. Ehringhaus to serve as a member of the North Carolina State Commission for the Study of Plans for Unemployment Compensation or Insurance (1934-35).

Glasson was a Methodist and a Republican. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa (charter member and president of the Trinity chapter when it was installed on 29 Mar. 1920, and secretary for the South Atlantic District 1925-37); Kappa Delta Pi; American Economics Association (member of the executive committee, 1916-18); Conference of Deans of Southern Graduate Schools, 1927-37 (an organizer of the conference and, in 1929, president); and Quill and Dagger, Cornell University.

On 12 July 1905, he married Mary Beeler Park, a native of Speedwell, Ky., and a 1902 graduate of Cornell. They were the parents of four children: Lucy (Mrs. Harold Wheeler), Mary (Mrs. Thomas Preston Brinn), Marjorie (Mrs. Norman Ross), and John, M.D. While returning from a meeting in Raleigh on 9 Dec. 1934, he was seriously injured in an automobile accident. After years of invalidism, he died at his home in Durham and was buried in Maplewood Cemetery. His papers and a portrait by Irene Price are in the William R. Perkins Library, Duke University.

Esther Evans

SEE: Durham Morning Herald, 12 Nov. 1946; William H. Glasson File, Duke University News Service (Durham); Greensboro News, 28 Aug. 1938; Raleigh Christian Advocate, 17 Apr. 1913; Who Was Who in America, vol. 2 (1950).

Source:  William Henry Glasson, 1874-1946 page from the website Documenting the American South. Original source: Dictionary of North Carolina Biography edited by William S. Powell. University of North Carolina Press, 1979-1996.

Image Source:  William Henry Glasson portrait by Irene Roberta Price.

Categories
Bryn Mawr Columbia Economists

Columbia. Economics Ph.D. alumnus, later leading librarian Charles C. Williamson, 1907

 

An earlier blog post listed the undergraduate and graduate economics courses taught at Bryn Mawr in 1909/10. One of the instructors was Marion Parris and the other was Charles Clarence Williamson, a Columbia economics Ph.D. graduate (1907), who only briefly taught economics but was to go on to a very distinguished career as a librarian, first at the New York Public Library and later as the director of the Columbia University Libraries and dean of the Columbia School of Library Service.

So now we know what happened to the economics Ph.D., Charles Clarence Williamson…economics’ loss was library sciences’ gain.

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From Williamson’s brief stint teaching economics

Charles Clarence Williamson, Ph.D., Associate in Economics and Politics.

A.B., Western Reserve University, 1904; Ph.D., Columbia University, 1907. Assistant in Economics and Graduate Student, Western Reserve University, First Semester, 1904-05; Scholar in Political Economy, University of Wisconsin, 1904-05; Graduate Student, University of Wisconsin, 1905-06; University Fellow in Political Economy, Columbia University, 1906-07; Research Assistant of the Carnegie Institution, 1905-07.

Source: Bryn Mawr College Calendar. Undergraduate and Graduate Courses, 1909. Vol. II, Part 3, (May, 1909), pp. 13.

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Life and career dates

1877. January 26, born in Salem, Ohio.
1904. A.B., Western Reserve University.
1907. Ph.D., Columbia University.
1907. June 22. Married Bertha L. Torrey in Cleveland, Ohio.
1907-1911. Bryn Mawr.
1911. Appointed head of a new Division of Economics and Sociology at the New York Public Library.
1913. August 15. Birth of daughter, Cornell Williamson, in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.
1914. Municipal reference librarian of New York City.
1918. Selective service registration lists employer as Carnegie Corporation, occupation “statistician”.
1921. Having returned to the New York Public Library, left to join staff of Rockefeller Foundation.
1921. Report written for the Carnegie Foundation, published 1923 as Training for Library Service.
1926-43. Director of the Columbia University Libraries and dean of the Columbia School of Library Service.
1939. September 16. Death of wife, Bertha.
1940. August 28, married to Genevieve Austen Hodge.

“Upon retirement he remained active in educational circles as a member of the Greenwich Association for the Public Schools and as consultant to the Connecticut Commission for Educational Television.”

1965. January 11, died in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Source: Columbia University Archives. Guide to the Charles Clarence Williamson Papers. Also data found at ancestry.com.

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Biographical material
[not consulted]

Williamson’s life and library career: The Greatest of Greatness: The Life and Work of Charles C. Williamson (1877-1965) by Paul A. Winckler (Scarecrow Press, 1992). Winckler also wrote the entry for Williamson in the Dictionary of American Library Biography (Libraries Unlimited, 1978)

People: Charles Williamson. Wilson Library Bulletin, Vol. 39 (February 1965), p. 439.

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Publications

Williamson, Charles Clarence. The Finances of Cleveland. Faculty of Political Science of Columbia University. Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law Vol. XXV, No. 3 (1907).

________________________. A Readers’ Guide to the Addresses and Proceedings of the Annual Conferences on State and Local Taxation. National Tax Association, 1913.

________________________. A List of Selected References on the Minimum Wage, in State of New York, Third Report of the Factory Investigating Commission, 1914. PP. 387-413.

________________________. Training for Library Service. Report prepared for the Carnegie Corporation of New York. New York: 1923.

 

Image Source: Portrait of Charles Clarence Williamson. University of Wisconsin-Madison, Information School Collection. Portraits of Librarians, United States.

 

Categories
Columbia Economists Iowa Statistics

Columbia. Economics Ph.D. alumnus. BLS Commissioner, Royal Meeker, 1906

 

Having myself been an economics index number junkie for the better part of my career, I could naturally not resist creating this post for our Meet an Economics Ph.D. alumna(us) series. I first “met” Royal Meeker, the third Commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics while identifying students who attended the advanced economics seminars conducted by John Bates Clark and Edwin R.A. Seligman at Columbia in 1900/01 and 1902/03. As you can see from his picture, he also provides a dapper addition to the Economists Wearing Bowties Collection.

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Royal Meeker
Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics
August 1913–June 1920
Appointed by: Woodrow Wilson

Royal Meeker was born in Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania in 1873. He attended college at Iowa State College, Columbia University, Seligman, and the University of Leipzig before becoming a professor of history, political science, and economics at Ursinus College in Pennsylvania. A year after publishing his dissertation in 1905, Meeker earned his Ph.D. from Columbia. When Meeker applied for and gained a position at Princeton in 1905, he made his first connection with Woodrow Wilson, then president of Princeton.

Wilson was elected President in 1912, and shortly afterward, Meeker offered to help by performing a survey of the economic community on the banking reform issue. Wilson found the information “most useful,” and, in June 1913, when Secretary of Labor Wilson recommended Meeker fill the position of Commissioner of Labor Statistics, President Wilson urged the Senate to accept. Meeker was sworn in on August 11.

A staunch believer in stressing the human factor in business, Meeker wanted, among other things, a nationwide system of public employment offices; workmen’s compensation; child labor restrictions combined with strong, State-controlled schools; and government action to protect workers. Meeker also sought to eliminate duplication of work by Government agencies, singling out six agencies competing with the Bureau.

During Meeker’s first years as Commissioner, he revised the index numbers of retail and wholesale prices, updated wage studies data collections, and began cost-of-living studies for the District of Columbia. In his concern for unemployment, Meeker ordered studies in 16 East and Middle West cities and 12 Rocky Mountain and Pacific Coast cities. The Bureau published the results in 1916 in the publication Unemployment in the United States. At the same time, the Bureau began a monthly series, “Amount of employment in certain industries,” which was the start of the Bureau’s establishment series on employment and total payrolls. In trying to reduce labor turnover by promoting improved working conditions in businesses, the Bureau surveyed corporate welfare plans from 430 employers.

In 1915, Meeker began supplementing the Bureau’s irregularly published bulletins with a new, monthly journal – the Monthly Review, now called the Monthly Labor Review. The journal expanded greatly, publicizing the first results of new Bureau surveys on cost of living, the new budget studies, and information on conditions in other countries. The Review later carried articles on the effect of war on wages, hours, working conditions, and prices in European countries.

Meeker also believed in creating national health insurance and safety programs. In 1916, he succeeded in convincing Congress to create a Board to administer the workmen’s compensation program, which had been under the Bureau’s responsibility since 1908. Working with a committee of the International Association of Industrial Accident Boards and Commissions, Meeker helped develop standard methods and definitions for reporting accidents. The Bureau offered to tabulate and publish State accident statistics, and in 1917, published Causes of Death by Occupation.

Meeker’s second term brought new challenges with the United States entering World War I. With the Government trying to adjust wages to rising costs of living, Meeker was permitted to create a comprehensive consumer expenditure survey. The Bureau began work by surveying the cost of living of families in shipbuilding, the results of which the Shipbuilding Board used to set uniform national wage rates for skilled shipyard trades.

Soon, the Bureau was allocated $300,000 to collect nationwide data on the cost of living. Conducted in 1918–19, the survey covered 12,000 families in 92 cities in 42 States. The results were published in the Monthly Labor Review in May 1919. Shortly thereafter, the Bureau issued its first comprehensive set of cost-of-living indexes for the Nation and for major industrial and shipbuilding centers. This marked the beginning of semiannual cost-of-living indexes for the Nation as a whole and for 31 cities.

To reflect wartime conditions and help resolve disputes, the Bureau was allotted $300,000 for an integrated study of occupational hours and earnings. The results, presented in May 1920, covered wages and hours during 1918 and 1919 for 780 occupations in 28 industries.

Meeker resigned in 1920 to head up the Scientific Division of the International Labor Office (ILO), a major office in the League of Nations. Secretary of Labor Wilson called Meeker “an exceptionally efficient administrator of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.” Secretary Wilson went on to describe Meeker’s three greatest accomplishments: coordinating the Bureau’s work with work performed by States and standardizing industrial terminology and methods; reorganizing the cost-of-living work on a family budget or market basket basis; and studying wartime wages and living costs that were accepted by all the wage boards.

After working for the ILO from 1920 to 1923, Meeker served as Secretary of Labor and Industry for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania from 1923 to 1924. In 1924, he went to China as a member of the Commission on Social Research, and 1926–27, he taught economics at Carleton College in Minnesota. Meeker served as president of the Index Number Institute in New Haven from 1930 to 1936, and in 1941, he was named Administrative Assistant and Director of Research and Statistics of the Connecticut Department. He retired in 1946 and died in New Haven in 1953.

Source: United States. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Webpage: BLS History/Commissioners/Royal Meeker.

Image Source: Prof. Royal Meeker, U.S. Commissioner of Labor Statistics, 1914. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

Categories
Columbia Economists Socialism

Columbia. Economics Ph.D. alumnus. Social insurance pioneer Isaac M. Rubinow, 1914

 

In the process of identifying participants in Edwin R.A. Seligman’s advanced seminar in Political Economy and Finance at Columbia University in 1902-03, I came across the name of Isaac Max Rubinow. His life and career were definitely interesting enough to warrant a separate blog post. Rubinow was a Russian-Jewish immigrant who became interested in social insurance after writing a paper on “Labor Insurance” for Seligman’s seminar. I’ll let the materials put together below speak for themselves, but I am puzzled by the three year delay between the submission of a printed draft of his dissertation submission (1911) and the awarding of a Ph.D. (1914). 

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Rubinow’s major works on social insurance

Studies in Workmen’s Insurance: Italy, Russia, Spain“ Copy of dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of doctor of philosophy” in the library of the University of California. New York, 1911. These are the three chapters he wrote for Volume II of the Twenty-Fourth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor 1909. Workmen’s Insurance and Compensation Systems in Europe.  Two volumes. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1911. [First volume: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany]

Social Insurance, With Special Reference to American Conditions. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Co; 1913.

From a series of fifteen lectures given at the New York School of Philanthropy in the spring of 1912.

The Quest for Social Security. New York: H. Holt, 1934.

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Negative review of Columbia Professor, Vladimir Simkhovitch,
on Karl Marx and socialism

Was Marx Wrong? The Economic Theories of Karl Marx Tested in the Light of Modern Industrial Development. New York: The Marx Institute of America, 1914.

Revised review of Vladimir Simkhovitch’s book Marxism versus Socialism originally published in the Sunday magazine section of the New York Call (Nov. 2 and 9, 1913).

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Rubinow’s life up to age 36
(The addenda to his submitted dissertation)

VITA

I.M. Rubinow was born on April 19, 1875, in the Province of Grodno, Russia. In 1883 he moved with his parents to Moscow, where he remained until 1892, receiving his secondary education in the Classical Department (Gymnasialabteilung) of a German school, Petri-Pauli-Schule.

He arrived in America in February, 1893, and entered the junior class of Columbia University in the fall of the same year, graduating in 1895 as A.B. He was appointed University Scholar in Biology for 1895-1906, and studied Biology, Physiology and kindred subjects under Professors Henry F. Osborn, Edmund Wilson, Frederick S. Lee and others. In 1898 he graduated from the New York University of Medicine with the degree of M.D., and remained in medical practice until 1903. Meanwhile in 1900 he entered the School of Political Science of Columbia University, and studied there until 1903, taking courses in Economics, Statistics, Sociology and Political Philosophy, under Professors Edwin R A. Seligman, Franklin H. Giddings, Henry B. Seager, Henry L. Moore and William A. Dunning.

In July, 1903, he gave up the practice of medicine to accept a position of examiner in the United States Civil Service Commission in Washington, D. C. In July, 1904, he was transferred to the Bureau of Statistics of the United States Department of Agriculture, as Economic Expert; in May, 1907, to the Bureau of Statistics of the United States Department of Commerce and Labor, as Chief of the Division of Foreign Statistics, and in March, 1908, to the Bureau of Labor of the United States Department of Commerce and Labor, as Statistical Expert.

He severed his connection with the United States civil service on May 1, 1911, to accept a position as Chief Statistician of the Ocean Accident & Guarantee Corporation in New York.

In the fall of 1911 he was appointed lecturer on Social Insurance in the New York School of Philanthropy.

He began his literary activity in 1897 as American correspondent of several Russian daily papers in St. Petersburg and Moscow, and since 1898 was the staff correspondent of all the publications of the Russian Ministry of Finance which include a daily and weekly, and at one time a monthly economic review.

In addition to fifteen years of newspaper work he has published many Government reports and magazine articles on economic, statistical, financial and social topics in English and Russian, a list of which is given on the following pages.

LIST OF PUBLICATIONS

ENGLISH

  1. How Much Have the Trusts Accomplished? Soc. Rev., Oct., 1902.
  2. Bernstein and Industrial Concentration. Soc. Rev., Feb., 1903.
  3. The Industrial Development of the South. Soc. Rev., March, 1903.
  4. Concentration or Removal, Which? Hebrew, July 17th and 24th, 1903. (Reprinted in Menorah, Aug., 1903.)
  5. The Kisheneff Pogrom. Arena, Aug., 1903 (signed “A Russian”).
  6. Removal: A New Patent Medicine. Hebrew, Sept. 25th, 1903.
  7. Labor Insurance. Pol. Econ., June, 1904.
  8. Compulsory State Insurance of Workingmen. Amer. Acad., Sept., 1904.
  9. Compulsory Insurance. The Chautauquan, March, 1905.
  10. Economic and Industrial Conditions of the Russian Jew in New York. (A chapter in the “Russian Jews in the United States,” by Ch. S. Bernheimer, Philadelphia, 1905, John C. Winston Co.)
  11. The New Russian Workingmen’s Compensation Act. Bulletin, U. S. Bur. Labor, May, 1905.
  12. Premiums in Retail Trade. Polit. Econ., Sept., 1905.
  13. Poverty and Death Rate. Publ. Am. Stat. Assoc., Dec., 1905.
  14. The Jews in Russia. Yale Review, Aug., 1906.
  15. Is Municipal Ownership Worth While? Soc. Review, Aug., 1906.
  16. Meat Animals and Packing House Products. S. Dept. Agric., Bur. Statistics, Bull. No. 10, 1906 (published anonymously).
  17. Norway, Sweden and Russia as markets for packing house products, Ibid., No. 41, 1906, (published anonymously).
  18. Russia’s Wheat Surplus. Ibid., No. 42, 1906.
  19. The Problem of Domestic Service. Polit. Econ., Oct., 1906.
  20. Women in Manufactures: A Criticism. Journ. Polit. Econ., Jan., 1907.
  21. Economic Condition of the Jews in Russia. No. 72, U.S. Bur. Labor., Sept., 1907.
  22. Western Civilization and the Birth Rate (discussion). Journ. Sociol., March, 1907.
  23. Russia’s Wheat Trade. S. Dept. Agric., Bur. Statistics, Bull. No. 65, 1908.
  24. Russian Wheat and Wheat Flour in European Markets. Ibid., Bull. 66, 1908. 99 pages.
  25. Commercial America in 1907. (Compiled and edited anonymously). of Commerce and Labor, Bureau of Statistics, 1908.
  26. The Economic Aspects of the Negro Problem. Soc. Rev., Vol. VIII: Feb., March, April, May, June, 1908. Vol. IX: July, Sept., Oct., 1908; Jan., March., June, 1909. Vol. X: July, Sept., Dec., 1909; May, June, 1910. (Signed I. M. Robbins.)
  27. Problem of Domestic Service (discussion). Journ. Sociol., March, 1909.
  28. Depth and Breadth of the Servant Problem. McClure’s, March, 1910. (In conjunction with Daniel Durant.)
  29. Domestic Service as a Labor Problem. Home Econ. April, 1911.
  30. Compulsory Old Age Insurance in France. Sc. Quart., Sept., 1911.
  31. Workmen’s Insurance in Italy. Twenty-fourth An. Rept., S. Comm. and Labor, Chapter VII. 1911.
  32. Workmen’s Insurance in Russia. Ibid., Chapter IX. 1911.
  33. Workmen’s Insurance in Spain. Ibid., Chapter X. 1911.
  34. Workmen’s Insurance in France. Ibid, Chapter IV. (In conjunction with G. A. Weber) 1911.

RUSSIAN

  1. The School Season in New York. Viestnik Vospitania (The Messenger of Education.), Oct., 1897.
  2. American University Education. Ibid., Jan., Feb., 1898.
  3. A University for the People. Ibid., Oct., 1898.
  4. The Social Movement in the United States. Sieverny Viestnik (The Northern Messenger), March, 1898.
  5. The Policy of Expansion. Znamya (The Banner), May, 1899.
  6. New Journalism in America. Knizhki Nedieli (The Week’s Library), March, June, July, 1900.
  7. Coeducation in America. Viestnik Vospitania (Messenger of Education), Oct., 1900.
  8. Secondary Education in America. Russkaya Shkola. (The Russian School), Nov., Dec., 1901.
  9. The Process of Concentration in American Industry, Narodnoye Khoziaistvo (National Economics), March, Apr., 1902.
  10. Letters from America. Voskhod (The Dawn), Apr., 1902.
  11. John B. Clark’s Trusts. A Review. Russkoye Economicheskoye Obosrenie (Russian Economic Review), July, 1902.
  12. Peters’ Capital and Labor—A Review. Ibid, Aug., 1902.
  13. Roberts’ The Anthracite Coal Industry—A Review. Ibid, Sept., 1902.
  14. Burton’s Commercial Crises—A Review. Ibid, Oct., 1902.
  15. The American Immortals. Obrazovanie (Education). Oct., 1902.
  16. Industrial Feudalism in the United States. Nauchnoe Obosrenie (The Scientific Review), Jan., Feb., 1902.
  17. Hamilton’s Savings and Saving Institutions—A Review. Russkoye Economicheskoye Obosrenie (Russian Economic Review), Jan., 1903.
  18. Seligman’s Economic Interpretation of History—A Review. Ibid, Jan., 1903.
  19. Labor Legislation in the U.S. Congress. Ibid., Aug., 1903.
  20. Laughlin & Willes’ Reciprocity—A Review. Ibid., Sept., 1903.
  21. Laughlin’s Money—A Review. Ibid., Nov., 1903.
  22. The Jewish Problem in New York. Voskhod (The Dawn), May, June, July, Aug., 1903.
  23. Chautauqua—an Educational Center. Russkaya Shkola (Russian School), Nov., Dec., 1903.
  24. Child Labor in America. Russkaya Mysl (Russian Thought), Oct., Nov., 1903.
  25. Mead’s Trust Finance—A Review. Ibid. Russkoye Economicheskoye Obozrenie (Russian Economic Review), Feb., 1904.
  26. Mitchell’s Organized Labor—A Review. Ibid., Feb., 1904.
  27. Roberts’ Anthracite Coal Communities—A Review. Ibid., May, 1904.
  28. Gillman’s Methods of Industrial Peace—A Review. Ibid., August, 1904.
  29. To My Correspondents. Voskhod (The Dawn), Sept., Oct., 1904.
  30. American Imperialism. Viestnik Samoobrazovania (The Messenger of Self-Education), Nos. 34, 37, 39, 1904.
  31. Children’s Courts in America. Pedogogicheski Listok (The Pedagogical Monthly), Jan., 1905.
  32. Economic Condition of the Russian Jews in New York. Voskhod (The Dawn), Jan., 1905.
  33. Letters from America. Ibid., April, 1905.
  34. New York Impressions. Ibid., Aug., Sept., Nov., 1905; Jan., 1906.
  35. Ghent’s Benevolent Feudalism—A Review. Russkoye Economicheskoye Obosrenie (Russian Economic Review), Feb., 1905.
  36. Leroy Beaulieu’s Les États-Unis au XX Siècle—A Review. Ibid., Aug., 1905.
  37. Evolution of Domestic Life. Russkaya Mysl (Russian Thought). June, 1905.
  38. American Bureaucracy. Mir Bozhi (God’s World), Sept., 1905.
  39. The Cotton and Cotton Manufactures in the United States. Viestnik Finansov (Messenger of Finance), 41-44, 1905.
  40. Municipal Corruption in the United States. Izvestia Moskovskoi Gorodskoi Dumy (Annals of the Moscow Municipal Council), Oct., 1905.
  41. The Struggle Against Municipal Corruption in Philadelphia. Ibid., Nov., 1905.
  42. Municipal Elections. Ibid., Feb., 1906.
  43. Franchise Capital in American Municipalities. Ibid., March, Apr., 1906.
  44. Municipalization of Street Railways in Chicago. Ibid., June, 1906.
  45. Care of Dependent Children in the United States. Ibid., Sept., 1906.
  46. The Public School System of New York City. Ibid., Oct., 1906; Jan., Feb., 1907.
  47. Domestic Service in America. Russkaya Mysl (Russian Thought), Feb., 1906.
  48. Women in American Industry. Ibid., Apr., 1906.
  49. Professional Work of American Women. Ibid., Sept., 1906.
  50. Capital and Nation’s Food. Sovremenny Mir (The Modern World), Sept., 1906.
  51. Russian Jews in America: I. Economic Condition. Ibid., March, 1907.
  52. Russian Jews in America: II. Social Life. Ibid., June, 1907.
  53. Current Municipal Problems in America. Izviestia Moskovskoy Gorodskoy Dumy (Annals of the Moscow Municipal Council), Aug., 1907.
  54. Finances of New York City. Ibid., March, April, May, 1908.
  55. Women in American Universities. Russkaya Mysl (Russian Thought), Sept., 1908.
  56. The Labor Problem and the American Law. Russkaya Bogatstvo (Russian Wealth), Sept., 1908.
  57. The Presidential Election in the U. S. Ibid., Jan., Feb., 1909.
  58. American Milling Industry. Russky Melnik (The Russian Miller), Jan., Feb., 1909.
  59. A New Study of Municipal Ownership. Ivziestia Moskovskoy Gorodskoy Dumy (Annals of the Moscow Municipal Council), March, 1909.
  60. The Pure Milk Problem. Ibid., May, June, 1909.
  61. Medical Inspection of Schools. Ibid., Sept., 1909.
  62. Playgrounds in American Cities. Ibid, March, 1910.
  63. One Week at a Negro University. Pusskoye Bogatstvo (Russian Wealth), Jan., Feb., 1910.
  64. The High Cost of Living. Viestnik Finansov (Messenger of Finance), No. 20, 1910.
  65. The Problem of Accident Compensation in American Legislation. Ibid., No. 38, 1910.
  66. The Sinking Funds of New York City. Izviestia Moskovskoy Gorodskoy Dumy (Annals of the Moscow Municipal Council), June, 1910.
  67. The Housing Problem in America. Ibid., Dec., 1910.
  68. Industrial Education in the United States. Ibid., March, 1911.

 

Source:  Studies in Workmen’s Insurance: Italy, Russia, Spain. “A Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of doctor of philosophy”. New York, 1911.

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Two Roosevelts

Rubinow’s views influenced Theodore Roosevelt in the drafting of the Progressive Party platform in 1912, which was the first major political party platform to call for social insurance. His 1934 book, The Quest for Security, further established Rubinow as probably the most eminent theorist of social insurance in the first three decades of the 20th century.

Former Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, Wilbur Cohen, would say of Rubinow: “I.M. Rubinow was one of the giants in the field of social insurance in the pioneering days of social reform in the United States. . . In my 35 years of work in social security, I.M. Rubinow has been an inspiration and an example.” According to former U.S. Senator Paul Douglas (D-IL), President Roosevelt was much influenced by Rubinow’s book and Roosevelt considered Rubinow to be the “greatest single authority upon social security in the United States.”

President Roosevelt owned a copy of Rubinow’s 1934 book “The Quest for Security” and had been reading in the months surrounding the formation of the Committee on Economic Security (CES) which drafted the Administration’s Social Security proposals. When he learned Rubinow was terminally ill, he autographed his copy of Rubinow’s book and sent it to him with this inscription on the flyleaf: “For the Author—Dr. I. M. Rubinow. This reversal of the usual process is because of the interest I have had in reading your book.” (Signed) Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Source: United States Social Security Administration. Social Security History Web page: Social Security Pioneers: Isaac M. Rubinow.

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Rubinow’s relations to the American Medical Association and to Jewish philanthropy

Also active in various political and reform movements during America’s Progressive Era, Rubinow was a member of the American Association of Labor Legislation (AALL) from its formation in 1906. In the early 1910s, he was one of the most effective advocates for workmen’s compensation legislation. Inspired by the success of that movement, in 1913 he turned with other AALL leaders to what Dr Rupert Blue, president of the American Medical Association (AMA), called “health insurance—the next great step in social legislation.” The AMA joined the campaign and appointed Rubinow executive secretary of its newly created Committee on Social Insurance. Rubinow worked tirelessly in this position until, in early 1917, the AMA, in a sharp reversal, cut off funds to the committee.

After several short-term positions and a 4-year stint as head of the American Zionist Medical Unit in Palestine, Rubinow returned to the United States in 1923 and made a new career in the world of Jewish philanthropy and social service. Between 1925 and 1929, he also edited the Jewish Social Service Quarterly and in 1927 became vice president of the American Association for Old-Age Security. In this position and others, he led efforts in the late 1920s and early 1930s to create unemployment and old age insurance. In 1931, Rubinow chaired an important conference in Chicago whose purpose was to draw up a unified program of legislation for old age. Early in the New Deal, President Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote to Rubinow to express “great interest” in his suggestions. When the president appointed the Committee on Economic Security in the summer of 1934 to advise on drafting the Social Security Act, Rubinow served as a consultant.

Source: Theodore M. Brown and Elizabeth Fee. Isaac Max Rubinow: Advocate for Social Insurance. American Journal of Public Health, Vol. 92, No. 8 (August 2002), pp. 1224-1225.

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Biographical Timeline of Isaac Max Rubinow

1875 Born in Grodno, Russia

1893 Immigrated to the United States

1895 Columbia University, A.B. Degree

1898 New York University Medical College, M.D.

1899 Practiced medicine

1900-03 Columbia University, Studied political science

1903 Gave up practice of medicine

1903-07 Examiner, U.S. Civil Service Commission

1907 Economic Expert, Bureau of Statistics, U.S. Department of Agriculture

1907-08 Member, Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Commerce & Labor

1908-11 Member, Bureau of Labor

1911-16 Chief Statistician, Ocean Accident and Guarantee Corporation

1913 First book published, Social Insurance.

1914 Columbia University, PhD.

1914-16 President, Casualty Actuarial Society

1916-17 Executive Secretary, American Medical Association, Social Insurance Commission

1917 Expert, California Social Insurance Commission

1917 Director, New York City Department of Public Charities, Bureau of Labor Statistics

1917-18 Investigator, Federal Trade Commission

1919-23 In Charge of American Zionist Medical Unit (renamed Hadassah Medical Organization)

1923-28 Director, Jewish Welfare Society of Philadelphia

1926-36 Executive Secretary, B’nai B’rith

1929 Executive Director, United Palestine Appeal

1932-33 President, National Conference of Jewish Social Service

1934 The Quest for Security published.

1936 September, Died at the age of 61.

Source: Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives, Cornell University Library. Guide to the Isaac Max Rubinow Papers.

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Secondary Literature

Obituary, Isaac M. Rubinow, 1875-1936 in Casualty Actuarial Society Proceedings Vol. XXIII, Nos. 47 (1936), pp. 118-120.

New York Times Obituary for Isaac M. Rubinow. September 3, 1936.

J. Lee Kreader. America’s Prophet for Social Security: A Biography of Isaac Max Rub inow [dissertation]. Chicago, Ill University of Chicago. 1988.

J. Lee Kreader. Isaac Max Rubinow: Pioneering Specialist in Social Insurance. Social Service Review Vol. 50, No. 3(September 1976), pp. 402-425.

Achenbaum WA. Isaac Max Rubinow. In: Garraty JA, Carnes M, eds. American National Biography. Vol 19. New York, NY: Oxford University Press; 1999:25–26.

Deardorff NR. Isaac Max Rubinow. In: Schuyler RL, James ET, eds. Dictionary of American Biography. Suppl 2. New York, NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons; 1958:585–587

 

Image Source: Isaac M. Rubinow Papers, Labor-Management Documentation Center, M. P. Catherwood Library, Cornell University.

 

 

 

 

 

Categories
Columbia

Columbia. Economics Seminar participants. J.B. Clark, 1901-1902

 

The original version of this post only provided a transcription of hand-written notes by John Bates Clark that appears to be an incomplete draft of part of an “teaching activities report” for the annual Dean’s report. The two semester course Economics 14,  Seminar in Political Economy and Finance, alternated every other week between Clark and E.R.A. Seligman. The next post will provide information about Seligman’s seminar schedule.

This post is another exercise in establishing the identities of students who attended advanced economics courses. I feel confident that I have identified eight of the seventeen paper-presenters. That information follows the schedule.

The participants of the Harvard Economics Seminary for 1897-98 have been tracked down for an earlier post, as have the Radcliffe women who signed a letter requesting permission to attend the Harvard Economics Seminary in 1926.

_____________________

Seminar in Political Economy and Finance
Professor Clark. 2 hours fortnightly. 16 members.

The following papers were presented:

Municipal Activities. Ray McClintock

Municipal Activities in England. Frank F. Nalder

Municipal Activities in the United States. Ray W. Thompson

Socialism. James A. McQueen

Socialism in the Southwest. Wallace E. Miller

The Theory of Monopolies. Henry R. Mussey

Governmental Monopolies. Yoshimasa Ishikawa

Laws Concerning Monopolies. George B. Keeler

Theories of Protection. Arthur J. Boynton

Modern Aspects of the Tariff. Harry B. Bennett

Theories of Wages. Isaac R. Henderson

The Bargain Theory of Wages. John S. Hershey

Von Böhm-Bawerk’s Theory of Interest. Robert B. Olsen

Over-Production. Samuel Peskin

European Trusts. Everett B. Stackpole

The Value of Money. Joseph C. Freehoff

Child Labor in the United States. Anna M. Cordley

Source: Columbia University. Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer to the Trustees for the Year Ending June 30, 1902, p. 155.

_____________________

Handwritten note of John Bates Clark
[no date]

1—The seminar in Political Economy and Finance has held 14 meetings under my direction and the same number under the direction of Professor Seligman. The following papers have been presented:—

by Mr. F. F. Nalder, on Municipal activities in England;

by Mr. J. C. Frihoff [sic], on The Value of Money;

by Mr. Ray McClintock on Municipal Activities.

by Mr. H. Thompson on Municipal Activities in the United States;

by Miss. A. M. Cordley on Anarchism Child [Labor] in U.S.

by Mr. A. J. Boynton on Theories of Protection:—

by Mr. J. S. Hershey on The Bargain Theory of Wages:—

by Mr. I.R. Henderson on Theories of Wages:—

by Mr. H. B. Bennett on Modern Aspects of the Tariff:—

by Mr. Y. Ishikawa on Governmental Monopolies:—

by Mr. H.A. Keeler on Present Laws Concerning Monopolies:—

Source: Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library. John Bates Clark Papers (MS #1419). Box 9, Folder 1. Series II.4.

_____________________________

Frank Fielding Nalder

Frank Fielding Nalder was born on November 5, 1876 in Penhurst, Providence of Victoria, Australia, and brought to the United States in 1884. He received his B. A. from the State College of Washington in 1901, his M.A. from Columbia in 1902, and his Ph. D. from the University of California in 1916. He was Registrar and instructor in history at the State College of Washington from 1903-1908, superintendent of schools in Tekoa, Washington from 1908-1909, with the department of state public instruction in Washington from 1909-1911, director of education for the Washington State Reformatory from 1912-1913, with the extension division of the University of California 1914-1919, and professor of social science and director of the college extension at the State College of Washington from 1919. He died on January 17, 1937.

Source:  Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections, Washington State Libraries. Guide to the Frank Fielding Nalder Photographs 1913-1914. 

Note: According to the Columbia University alumni register, Nadler was awarded an A.M. in 1904.

Source: Columbia University alumni register, 1754-1931, compiled by the Committee on General Catalogue. New York: Columbia University Press, 1932, p. 635.

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Joseph C. Freehoff

Cornell College.-Mr. Joseph C. Freehoff has been appointed Professor of Economics in Cornell College, Mt. Vernon, Iowa. He was born on December 25, 1869, near La Crosse, Wis., attended the public schools of this region and the State Normal School at River Falls. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin with the degree of B.S. in 1897 [sic], where he also pursued graduate work in Sociology and Political Economy. In 1898 he became Acting Professor of Political Economy at Cornell College. In 1899 he declined an election as Fellow at the University of Chicago, to accept a similar election at the University of Wisconsin, but resigned this fellowship upon receiving the permanent appointment at Cornell College.

Source: Personal Notes. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 14, Issue 3, 1899. p. 349.

(INSP.) Ph.D., 04; B.S., 91, Univ. Wis.
b. La Crosse, Wis.; River Falls (Wis.) Normal Schedule., 89; Univ. Wis., 89-91; N.Y.U. Grad. Sch., 02-4; fellow of sociol. and pol. econ., Univ. Chicago, 96-98; actg. prof. pol. econ., Cornell Coll., Ia., 98-01; sanitary inspector, N.Y.C.; publ.: Value of Money.

Source: New York University. General Alumni Catalogue, v. 2 (1905), p. 176.

Joseph C. Freehoff, formerly of New York University, was recently appointed statistician for the Public Service Commission of New York, first district.

Source: The Economic Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 4 (Dec. 1908), p. 285.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Holland McTyeire Thompson

Thompson, Holland A.M. 1900, PhD 1906, College of City of NY, NYC, coll prof.

Source: Columbia University alumni register, 1754-1931, compiled by the Committee on General Catalogue. New York: Columbia University Press, 1932, p. 876.

See: Biographical entry “Holland Thompson, 1873-1940” in Dictionary of North Carolina Biography.

Published dissertation:  From the Cotton Field to the Cotton Mill: A Study of the Industrial Transition in North Carolina. New York: Macmillan, 1906.

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Annie Minto Cordley

Born September 26, 1863 in Lawrence, Massachusetts.

Cordley, Annie Minto. Glen Ridge, N.J.
Lawrence; 82 [non-graduate of Mount Holyoke]; B.S. Wellesely Coll. 87, M.A. Columbia Univ. 03; teacher New York N.Y. 87-05, Briarcliff Manor N.Y. 05-10.

Source: General Catalogue of Officers and Students of Mount Holyoke College 1837-1911., p. 167.

Annie Minto Cordley. AM 1903, d. Jan 1, 1915.

Source: Columbia University alumni register, 1754-1931, compiled by the Committee on General Catalogue. New York: Columbia University Press, 1932, p. 180.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Arthur Jerome Boynton

Arthur Jerome Boynton–Emerald Grove, Wis.
Ph.B., Beloit College, 1896;
A.B., Harvard University, 1901
Major subject: Political economy and finance
Minor subjects: Sociology and Statistics; International Law
Essay: The philosophy of the single tax.

Source: Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Minutes of the Faculty of Political Science, 1902, p. 93.

Arthur Jerome Boynton, A.B., 1901, (Harvard); A.M., 1902, (Columbia). Associate Professor of Economics, 1910; 1903 [first appointment at the University of Kansas]

Source:  Annual Catalogue of the University of Kansas, 1912-1913, p. 13.

Professor Arthur Jerome Boynton. Lawrence Kan., March 18 (AP). Arthur Jerome Boynton, Professor of Economics at the University of Kansas, died here today.

Source: The New York Times, March 19, 1928 (p. 16).

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J. S. Hershey

J. S. Hershey, School of Law [graduate], 1904.

Source: Columbia University alumni register, 1754-1931, compiled by the Committee on General Catalogue. New York: Columbia University Press, 1932, p. 1102.

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Yoshimasa Ishikawa

Ishikawa, Yoshimasa. A.M. 1903, 584 Omori Iriarai-Machi Tokyo Japan, coll prof.

Source: Columbia University alumni register, 1754-1931, compiled by the Committee on General Catalogue. New York: Columbia University Press, 1932, p. 434.

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Howard Allan Keeler

Columbia College class of 1903.  Intercollegiate chess player for Columbia

Source: Columbia Spectator (January 23, 1903).

Worked as an advertising manager, living in New York City according to the 1920 U.S. Census.
… at an advertising agency, living in Great Neck Estates in New York according to the 1930 U.S. Census.
….as an agent for casulty insurance in Great Neck Estates in New York according to the 1940 U.S. Census

Born January 23, 1883 in Manhattan, died November 1963.

 

Image Source: John Bates Clark portrait from the webpage “Famous Carleton Economists“.